Deep Shadows
by reciprocityfic
Summary: au - where the end of the world brings about a hardness and isolation in her, and how he tries to invade her space. because is surviving alone really surviving at all?
1. Hide, Seek

The end of the world comes in a fire, a destructive, all-consuming blaze that plays no favorites. The Purge sweeps across the planet in a flash that seemingly no one was prepared for, leaving in its wake a bleak, charred version of what life used to be.

Very little is left standing. A mere few are left alive.

She is one of them.

* * *

They call themselves The Chosen, unite together as a group bonded by survival. They are the new order, the ones hand selected by some higher power to replenish the earth and start anew.

They should be so lucky. How quickly they forget that only weeks ago, they were absolutely nobody.

She leaves, knows it is better to be alone than in a group. She packs food, a gun, and ammunition, and then heads for the woods. She does not want to be there when they all fall off of their high horses, when they open their eyes and realize that they are the only things left and _everything_ is gone. The world is gray and dead, is no one's new kingdom or Eden. It is lifeless, void, wasted.

There is nothing to restore.

* * *

Surely enough, The Chosen realize this.

Gangs form, leaders are picked. Loyalties are made, divisions set deep. Riots run rampant, people are slaughtered in droves. Only the strongest, only the most _unfeeling_ , survive.

How quickly they forget their civility.

* * *

The woods become a part of her. She learns its language, its veins, its heart. She discovers how to make a tree spew forth a stream of fresh water, how to make a meal out of weeds and roots. She can now kill scarce small game with her bare hands, blend into trunks or bushes in broad daylight to hide from predators. She finds places to sleep that will give her adequate warmth for the cold nights. She makes a bow and arrows using a knife and thick branches she finds on the ground, discovers its silent launch to be more desirable with the lacking wildlife than the loud bang of a gun. She adapts, changes, grows like the plants surrounding her.

She makes a life here, is quick to make sure that it goes undisturbed, that no one upsets its delicate balance. She does not hesitate to shoot a bullet or arrow through the head of anyone she views as a threat to the fragile ecosystem she's created.

Life in the woods is lonely. But more importantly, she makes it safe.

Sometimes survival keeps no company at all.

* * *

She marks days down with a simple tally, a line carved with her knife on a piece of tree bark carried around in the pack slung across her body. She doesn't know why. Here in the woods, time is lost, infinite. Mornings blend into nights. Days blend into weeks. And time, a counting of the days, means nothing.

All it tells her is that last week, on a day nearing her thirty-third birthday, she sent an arrow sailing through the head of a young man with black hair and hazel eyes. She did not know his name or his purpose. Just that she had to survive. All it takes is one person to rat her out to the gangs. Then everything would be over.

She has to survive.

(Sometimes she wonders deep into the night, around the biggest campfire she will allow herself to make, if she is one of the monsters.)

* * *

On day three hundred fourteen, she falls.

Not of her own volition or accident, of course. She is so sure of the woods now, traversing the uneven surface of roots and rocks is as simple as walking across a quiet, pure green meadow, if they only existed anymore.

Rather, she is _pushed._ To the ground, forcefully.

She does not have time to draw her bow and arrow, or even her gun, before someone is sitting on top of her, a hand pressed over her mouth.

She stares up into pale blue eyes. A face coated with a thin layer of dirt, a head covered with brown hair. A man, strong and fit.

And, oh God, this is the end of everything.

"Listen," he whispers to her powerfully. "I know that every fiber of your being is itching to kill me, but I want you to know that no more than thirty yards from us is a pack of about six men whose main objective is to murder _you_. About a half-mile from here is a cave that they don't know about. I've been watching them. And I know that you have no reason to trust me, but I think if we move quickly and quietly, we can get there and hide out until they leave."

He sits up, begins to release his grasp on her. Her hand jerks automatically to her gun at her hip. His eyes do not miss the movement.

He, of all things, smirks.

"Look, the choice is yours. You can follow me, or you can run. But I truly think your best chance at living is coming with me. And I would _really_ appreciate it if you didn't kill me."

His eyes, suddenly, grow deadly serious.

"And I want you to know if I let your mouth go and you scream, we are both absolutely, positively dead."

He releases her slowly, still crouching. She backs up at once, and sits up against the moist trunk of an oak.

"So," he begins, his tone still hushed. "What do you say?" He asks too casually, like an old friend requesting lunch or a neighbor asking her to let his dog out while he's gone for the day.

Every part of her screams **_no_** _,_ that a cave is a dead end. They'll be sitting ducks. That company is the enemy, that friends, in these times, will only – quite literally – stab you in the back. That she doesn't know this man from Adam.

She follows him.


	2. Alone, Together

He turns out to be smarter than she expected. The cave is well-covered, quite concealed. She builds her first proper fire in months. The faint footsteps she hears don't even make her jump.

"Are you her? Are you the one?"

She looks at him from across the flames, which do interesting things to the lines and shadows of his face. He looks around her age. He's handsome, she allows herself to admit, since he is only her accomplice for the night.

She does not try to fool herself into thinking that she will stay with him anywhere past the early, gray hours of the morning.

"The one?" she asks.

"The one," he states again, like it should be enough of an explanation. "The creature in the woods."

She looks down, stares at the hot wood on the fire, listens to it crackle and pop.

He continues, "The creature in the woods. The one that slaughters everything in its path. You must've heard the stories. People wandering into the trees, desperate for food or water. And they're never seen again. You never send anything into the woods that you aren't willing to lose."

She pulls her knees up to her chest, answers with silence.

"You must be, if you haven't heard the stories. I'd thought everyone heard them."

She continues to stare at the glowing orange twigs on the fire. She was right, she supposes. Except, she doesn't have the humanity to be classified as a monster.

She is a _creature._ One who terrorizes those who remain.

She'd only wanted to survive.

He interrupts her thoughts.

"It's funny. I'd always pictured you as something – "

"Different?" she questions, cutting him off. She looks up, and he nods once at her.

"Yeah."

"Looks can be deceiving," she whispers.

He laughs somberly. "You're telling me."

"It's late," she tells him. "We should get some sleep."

He rises to put out the fire, as she turns away from him, lying on her side on the rocks and using her pack as a pillow.

"You'll be gone in the morning, won't you?" he asks her, before the last flame is out.

"Yes," she says simply.

She hears him sigh, and then with a breath the cave is pitch black. He settles down, and then she hears a sentence mumbled so quietly, she thinks she might've imagined it.

"I think I'd rather you stayed."

* * *

"How long did you think you could follow me before I noticed?"

She stops her trek in the wood, turns around and waits. Moments pass, and then he slowly steps out from behind a tree.

"Oh, I don't know. Maybe an hour, tops?"

She sighs heavily. She'd left about a half an hour ago, just before the sun peeked out from behind the horizon. She'd been sure to be silent, so she didn't wake him. She didn't want to have to listen to him plead with her to stay. That wasn't an option. She just _couldn't_. And there was no need to disappoint him.

But it seems he hadn't been asleep, and she had noticed his footsteps only five minutes after she'd gone. He was quiet, but not enough to be hidden from her trained ears. She hoped he would give up and leave her alone, but she stares at him now, an unwanted companion on her journey. This is just the sort of thing she needed to avoid.

The look of trepidation on his face is almost comical. She snorts.

"What, are you afraid I'm going to shoot you? I'm _the creature in the woods_ , after all."

His face softens. "Hey. That's not – "

She interrupts him. "Look, I'd tell you to get out of here, but somehow I don't think that you would go. And I don't think threats are going to deter you. So you have two options. One, you can leave. My preferred choice, and the one that I think would be best for both of us. Groups really are dangerous. Alone, we have no guilt, we don't owe anybody anything, are accountable to no one but ourselves. You go one direction, I'll go another. Wish each other well and be on our ways. But, of course, I don't think you're going to go for that."

He smiles. "You know me well already."

"Option two," she begins, "you follow me. But let me make something very clear to you. I am in no way responsible for you. I am not your protector. I will not feed you, I will not shelter you, I will not save you. You're not going to become my charity case. I'm not going to fight for you. I am my main priority and I'm sorry if that sounds cold or shallow or callous, but my goal in this whole fucking mess is to _live_ , not to make friends. So you can follow me. But you better watch your own back. Are we clear?"

He nods. "Crystal."

"Good." She turns. "And try to walk more quietly. I could've picked out your footsteps a mile away."

"Yes, ma'am. Lead the way."

* * *

They build a small fire at night. One just big enough to take the sharp chill out of the air.

"May I ask where we're headed?"

She pauses, considering his question. She's never had a location in mind, she's just simply gone. She wasn't working towards a certain destination. She was only trying to get away.

"South," she says. She always went south.

"What's south?"

She shrugs. "What's here?"

He chuckles lightly. "Good point."

They're quiet for a few moments.

"I'm Peter, by the way."

She nods.

"Oh, come one. You're not going to tell me your name?"

"No," she answers.

"What do you think is going to happen? We're suddenly going to become best friends and won't be able to bear being without each other? Just because I know your _name_?"

"I told you I wasn't going to be your friend," she retorts.

"I know. It's just that usually, you need to know more than someone's name to be classified as their friend."

"Well, it's not like that anymore."

He pauses, stares at her with incredulous and annoyed eyes. Then, he smirks.

"You weren't much of a people person before all this, were you?"

She glares at him.

"Fuck you."

"Aw, sweetheart, I'm flattered."

It takes every bit of her restraint and ever-fading manners not to punch him in the mouth.

"I'm no one's damn sweetheart," she spits at him. "And you can shut your mouth, because I didn't sign up for this. I never wanted a partner, let alone a self-righteous smart ass who would beg to follow me and then pout if I didn't give him his way. This operation is going to run _my_ way, no questions asked, and if you have a problem with that your option to leave is still available to you at any time. If you stay, you swallow whatever useless pride you have, you suck it up, and you shut up."

He makes a show of it, pantomiming zipping his lips. She rolls her eyes, getting up to put out the fire.

"You're a real trip, you know that?"

Darkness overtakes them. She lies down to go to sleep. Just before she shuts her eyes, she murmurs a question into the night.

"Why did you even come to save me, anyway? Why did you rescue the creature in the woods? Why didn't you just let them kill me?"

She tries to ignore the hint of wistfulness she hears in her voice, pushes away the thoughts that tell her that maybe death would be easier than this. Maybe it is the only end to everyone's story now, and that all she can hope for is that it is quick and relatively painless.

She waits for his answer. But she doesn't receive one. After all, she told him to shut his mouth.

He does.


	3. Past, Present

The woods go back to the way they were. Quiet, peaceful, lonely. Incredibly lonely, even though there is another set of feet constantly walking beside her. Even though she eats berries that someone else has gathered, sits around a fire that she hasn't built. There is someone else breathing beside her, a heartbeat whose drumming she sometimes swears she can hear on nights when it seems the forest too has died, when there is no sound except an incredibly soft _ba-bum, ba-bum, ba-bum._

And yet, she feels more alone than she has ever been.

It's funny how incomprehensible solitude, when tempered with the slightest company, can go into a tailspin when that companionship is taken away. She thinks it hurts more the second time, even though she only knew his voice for two days.

He has not spoken to her for two and a half weeks. Eighteen days. Four hundred thirty-two hours, twenty-five thousand, nine hundred twenty minutes.

She sometimes, in the evenings when their fire is built, stares at him as he fiddles with a loose string on his sleeve. He doesn't look at her, doesn't open his mouth. She almost begs, almost gets down onto her knees and pleads with him to _please say something. Please talk to me._

Then she closes her eyes and remembers her dignity. Who she is. And that she never, ever wanted to be his friend.

So she goes to sleep, nearly drowning in her isolation, trying to pick out _ba-bum ba-bums_ until she drifts.

* * *

"I came because I didn't believe it."

She literally jumps at the sound of his voice, and her hand moves to her gun before she realizes that he's _speaking to her_. She could cry, but she doesn't. She takes a deep breath to steady herself, before turning to look at him. His blue eyes are intense as they stare at her.

"Why, by God, he speaks," she tries to joke.

He smirks briefly before continuing.

"You may think that you have some idea as to what's going on out there, but I promise you, you don't. I assure you it's worse than your wildest imaginings. Things are _fucked_. People are animals. The gangs…the things that they do…the things I've _seen_ them do…" He stops walking and she pauses with him, as he closes his eyes, bending over and taking a long, deep breath. He shudders.

"Over a can of peaches," he whispers. "A bottle of flat soda. Or a damn twenty dollar bill. Fucking _money_. Money doesn't get you anything. It doesn't mean anything. It's worthless, for Christ's sake."

He's sitting on the ground now, his knees pulled up to his chest with his arms crossed over them, his head down. They should be moving, and she knows this. They must _always_ keep moving.

But she settles down next to him. Hell, it's the first time he's talked in nearly three weeks.

"The humane people, the _sane_ ones, avoid the gangs. You lay low, don't draw attention to yourself, and try to only travel in groups of two or three. Never let it look like you have a lot of supplies, even if you do. And whatever you do, don't go out at night."

He lifts his head to look at her. His eyes are burning, like flames dancing over a cool, blue ocean.

"If the gangs did find you, you had no choice. You _begged_ – and I mean, you got on your knees and fucking _groveled_ – to join them. Because if you didn't, they tied you up, and they chopped off your toes to feed to their dogs before they left you to starve and bleed to death."

She flinches unconsciously.

"My mom committed suicide when I was fifteen," he says. She opens her mouth to speak, but he cuts her off.

"Yeah, I know. You're sorry. So is everyone. But anyway, my mom died a while ago, and my dad was old and didn't make it very long after The Purge. I didn't have any brothers or sisters. No family. I had a number of friends, but I couldn't get in touch with most of them. Some I heard from, but they were scattered all over the place and everything was so insane. Meeting up would've been a huge hassle. So we didn't.

"I had a girlfriend, though." He almost laughs, but the sound is frustrated and bitter. "And she was all I had. The only person here to try to survive with. Not that I minded. I loved her. She was beautiful and perfect and all I wanted to do was protect her. I wanted, more than anything, for her to live."

He pauses, running a hand through his hair and tugging on the strands.

"You always moved around. Constantly. Because sometimes, the gangs would go _looking_ for people they thought had overstayed their welcome or were a threat to their territory, whatever. You never wanted to get caught in the middle of that. Around the city there were a ton of abandoned buildings where you could usually find a space to hole up in for the night. And that's what her and I did. We didn't have much. A gun, some bullets. A hunting knife. A little bit of food and water. We spent our days wandering around trying to find supplies and then slept in empty warehouses at night."

He turns toward her, lifting his chin up and rubbing his finger up and down along his neck.

"See this scar?" he asks. She leans in and squints. She spots it, a thin, discolored patch of skin, running vertical about two inches on the left side of his neck. She nods.

"So, this one night," he continues, "I'm sleeping, and I feel this really sharp pain in my neck. I open my eyes, and my girlfriend is sitting over me. She has the bag that we kept all our stuff in over her shoulder. And she's holding the hunting knife. She has it pressed to my skin, so hard that I can feel that it's already starting to bleed. I don't know what to do. I don't want to move. I don't want to scare her in case she freaks out and jumps and cuts somewhere she _really_ shouldn't. So I'm just laying there, staring up at my girlfriend, this woman who I love so much, and I grasp that she's trying to slit my throat while I sleep, take all our stuff, and run. It's a shitty realization to make, you know?"

She looks at him with wide, shocked eyes.

" _Peter."_

He shrugs. "She broke. So many people do. You go around every day, witnessing all this destruction, all this death. You live this absolutely meaningless, mind-blowingly horrific life. The only thing that keeps you going, that keeps you from sticking your own gun in your mouth and blasting your brains out, is the false optimism that someday everything will go back to the way it was. That societies rise and fall all the time, and we are just another Greece or Rome or Maya. That we'll bounce back. We've always bounced back."

He stares at her, his eyes still infernos, his words heavy.

"We won't. There is no rebounding. This isn't some societal collapse that they're going to write about in history books. This is fucking Armageddon. There is nothing – _nothing_ – left. There is _no hope_."

He stops. She doesn't speak.

She had known it was a lost cause, society and living. The images she conjured up in her head of what it was like out there were terrifying, nightmarish. Scenes picked straight out of the post-apocalyptic horror film of the century.

She struggles to comprehend, then, how the words he speaks paint a picture even bleaker than what she'd made up.

"People realize this," he whispers. "That this is what life is now, what it's always going to be for as long as humans can manage to survive. They lose faith. And when they do, they lose their minds, too. They throw away all trust, all emotion, any sense of security they tricked themselves into feeling. And they go insane."

She wonders if they can feel it, if they know that they're slipping. Or if they simply wake up crazy.

"She moved the knife up and let out a blood-curdling scream. Then she threw the knife and ran. And I never saw her again. Luckily, one of the people in the room right next to ours was a doctor. He heard the scream and came over to see what was going on. He found me there, lying on the ground, half-laughing and half-crying, blood pouring from my neck. You wouldn't believe how much blood there is when you slice your neck. By the time he came back with his first-aid kit and stitched me up, I was sure I bled halfway to death. He said I was lucky. She'd missed my jugular by about two centimeters."

Her eyes lock again on the scar.

"I went from having someone to live for, someone to save, to literally having absolutely nothing. Except," he says, reaching back into his pants and pulling out a blade, "the knife that nearly took my life. Here." He hands it to her, and she takes it without thinking. "You can have it. A nice souvenir of your trek through the end of days."

"What did you do?" she asks.

"I tried to make friends. I tried to join up with another small group. But no one would have me. Not even the good doctor. Some people felt bad, but I couldn't really blame them. You simply can't trust anyone. Not anymore. No matter how nice or reasonable they may seem. You never know what they're hiding behind their back."

"Looks can be deceiving," she repeats, thinking back to that first night in the cave.

"Exactly. So I was all alone, wandering through the streets scavenging for _anything,_ trying desperately not to sleep because there was no way for me to feel even relatively safe. I used to sit in back alleys at night, up against the brick, with my knife in hand, because I was sure that if I closed my eyes, someone would kill me. And when sleep _did_ come, simply because I couldn't physically stay awake any longer, she would be in my dreams, standing with her knife, smiling. And it was even more terrifying when she started showing up when I was conscious."

Her eyebrows scrunch together in confusion. "She…came back for you?"

He shakes his head. "No. I was hallucinating. I was starving, dehydrated, exhausted, empty-handed, delusional, and alone. There was a period of a few days when I was almost certain I was going to die. And that's when the gang showed up."

"They confronted you."

He nods. "Yeah. And like I said, you have two choices: die or join. And at that point, I was _just_ sane enough to refuse to order my own execution. So I joined."

An inevitable question comes to her lips. "What was it like?"

He links his fingers together. "I can't…I don't…" He struggles, trying to find words that won't come. "I can't tell you. I can't talk about it. I refuse to put you through that. But…it was like _hell._ Like the devil himself set up a kingdom here on earth.

"I was there for eighteen days. The eighteen most horrifying days of my existence. That's the same number of days I didn't speak to you. You told me to suck it up, so I did. I walked next to you and would replay those days in my head, all the terrible details that I remembered. I reminded myself that even though you refuse to even give me one inkling as to who you are, and even though you won't smile in my direction because God forbid I take it as a sign that you don't hate me, you are a billion times better than what they were."

She stiffens. "I barely knew you. You're _still_ basically a stranger to me. What did you except me to do?"

"I know," he tells her softly. "I know that. I'm sorry. I…overreacted the other day. You're right. I basically forced myself on you. It's the least I could do to play by your rules. It's just that I've been by myself for such a long time. And I guess that I hoped…"

"Hoped what?" she asks. She can feel his eyes on her, but she stares straight ahead, picking at a clover growing from the forest floor.

"Nothing. It doesn't matter anymore."

"No," she says flatly. "I guess it doesn't. After all, what could you want from the creature in the woods?"

He doesn't answer.

"I'm a monster," she breathes, barely audible. Her bow suddenly feels like it weighs one thousand pounds on her back.

"We fought," he begins abruptly. "The gangs. We fought with everyone. There was no peace, no alliances. Your goal was not to make friends. It was to dominate. To be the best. To have the most supplies, the most weapons, the most territory. There was no common ground. Except…" He pauses, and runs a finger through the dirt and weeds on the ground. His next words are a whisper.

"Except the creature in the woods."

She looks at anything but him. Her shoulders sink.

"There were rumors," he continues. "So many rumors. Stories of a beast that roamed through the trees and murdered anything that set foot on its land. They were overblown, of course. But still, it was true that this animal killed without bias. It had caused losses to every gang in the city.

"So they came together. Representatives from every group. And they made plans to gather their sharpest shooters and go hunt the beast. Kill the animal once and for all."

He laughs once. "That's what I thought it was at first. An animal. A mutant creature that was formed from after-effects of The Purge. That's what they made it sound like. But then again, who knows? I was still seeing her around corners, standing there with a knife and a smile.

"It didn't find out until three days before they left that it was a girl."

She cringes, but still does not turn to him.

"I finally understood why they were so pissed. I mean, sure, there was a beast in the woods killing people, but we didn't need to go into to the woods. The gangs had everything they needed already. So just stay out of the woods. Problem solved. But if it was a girl – a single, human girl…"

"It made them look weak," she finishes.

"Exactly. And they were not going to be shown up by some lone girl running around in the forest with a bow and arrow."

He pauses and takes a deep breath.

"You asked me," he begins gently, "why I came. Why I wanted to save you. I came because I didn't believe it. Or maybe, I didn't want to. I didn't want to think that there was some unfeeling, lethal woman in the woods murdering in cold blood. After all the horrible things that I'd seen, all the shit that I'd experienced, I would've gone _crazy_. More than I already was. So I had to prove it to myself. That it wasn't true.

"I started following them on their scouting missions. And it was by all luck that I literally stumbled upon that cave. Nearly broke my ankle. And it was by even more luck that, when they went hunting, we were only about ten minutes away when I finally found you."

"And discovered that they were right," she whispers.

"No."

"I _am_ a beast." She pulls at her hair as her mind flips, and she wonders if this is it, if she is breaking. If this is what it feels like to go insane.

"No," he repeats vehemently. "No. I think that you think that I blame you for killing those people, but I don't. I can't. And no one would. You didn't know who those people were, what they would try to do to you. If you wanted to survive, you couldn't afford to be generous."

"But I did it so quickly," she cries quietly. "I didn't give them a chance to explain, I didn't let them run. I just shot them, _killed them_ , left them to bleed out in the forest, alone, without – "

"You didn't kill me," he interrupts. "And that's got to count for something, doesn't it?"

"Does it? I want it to. I want it to."

"It does," he says, conviction ringing strong in his voice, like a devout worshiper proclaiming love for their god.

The bushes rustle, and she stares, resisting every urge to reach for a weapon. A rabbit pokes out its head and then jumps, scurrying away.

"No one knows my name," she murmurs, finally looking at him. Their gazes lock, and she fights herself. Fights her primal instincts that have resurfaced, that tell her connection is dangerous. That still urge her to run.

She will _not_ look away.

"Everyone I loved," she tells him, "everyone I knew – my coworkers, my neighbors, my friends, my family – they're all dead. All of them. And there is no one on the planet – literally _no one_ – who knows my name."

And for a moment, she feels so small. She thinks of the stars that she used to marvel at as a little girl, millions of light-years away, and for a moment she feels so anonymous, so _insignificant_ , that the fact that someone would send a hunting party after her seems incomprehensible.

"It does mean something. It means _so much_. It means…"

"Everything," he says, and his eyes do not burn anymore. Instead, the blue is warm, comforting, like a steaming bath on a cold evening, and she feels like she could melt, slip into them and drift away.

"I know now," he assures her. "I understand."

"I'm sorry." And for the first time in so long, she truly is.

"It's okay." He smiles, but it is not quite happy. It cannot be that way now for either of them, after all that they've seen, after the burden it's placed on both of their shoulders.

He reaches his hand out, but hesitates, drops it onto the earth between them.

"I think we're going to be okay, you and me. I think we're going to make it. Somehow, we're going to make it."

Somehow.


	4. Two, One

Loneliness is a funny thing.

It's funny the way it roots itself inside you, changes you, makes you push aside all better judgment to only rid yourself of it. It's funny how it opens you to someone who will give you a time of day, who will be a steady presence by your side, who will follow your footsteps in the forest and trust you enough to fall asleep across from you despite the gun at your hip.

It's funny how it makes quiet, scant laughter sound like music, the feeling of his arm grazing your side like heaven. It funny the way it makes the shadows on his face, the light from the fire dancing on his skin, so much more than handsome. It's funny how they become _beautiful_.

It's funny the way it turns a complete stranger into a friend.

She stares at him openly now, sitting across from her, his hands still toying with that string.

So fucking beautiful.

"I used to listen for you heartbeat."

Her words grab his attention, and he lifts up his head immediately. His fingers keep moving, though. She wants to still them.

But not tonight. Not yet.

"What?" he questions.

"I used to listen for your heartbeat," she repeats, her fingers coming up to tangle in her hair. "When you wouldn't talk to me. I _hated_ it. I hated not hearing you. I felt so alone, even more than I had before you found me. And I couldn't ask you to say something, because it was my fault you weren't speaking in the first place. So at night I used to just close my eyes and listen for your heart. And on some nights, when it was especially quiet, I thought I could hear it. I know that's impossible. I know that. But I swear, _I swear_ that I heard it."

Her words are an invitation. The only kind she's brave enough to make.

He accepts.

He's up before she can blink, coming over and sitting next to her on the ground. He slowly takes her hand buried in her blond locks and holds it in both of his.

"I just needed to know," she tells him, her voice shaking. She could cry in relief, having him with her, his voice once again part of her day. "I needed to know you were still here."

One of his hands moves to her face, and he runs his fingers gently along her jawline.

"Peter."

His palm pushes against her cheek softly. She knows that he's giving her an escape route. He knows better than to force anything on her, even with the steps they've taken. She could resist the pressure if she wanted to, squeeze his hand and pull away with a sad smile. He would not be upset, and tomorrow things would be different, but also the same. They would be friends, but they would still be two individuals on two different paths that happen to be pointing in the same direction for the moment.

But she puts up no struggle.

She lets his hand – large, sturdy, and worn from the hardships of an apocalyptic world – bring her face to his chest. Her skin presses against the fabric of his shirt, and she inhales deeply. She smells a number of things – the woods, smoke, something else not unpleasant that she can't quiet describe. She decides that it must be simply him. She memorizes the scents, categorizes the mix in her brain and labels it _Peter_.

"I'm here," he says, and she cannot only hear his words now, but she can _feel_ them as they rumble low in his chest. His free arm comes up and wraps around her, squeezing her body tighter to his. "I'm here, sweetheart. I've always been here and I'll always be here."

She never imagined that she would be held like this again. She never thought that someone's touch would ever be so gentle, that close proximity to another human would feel this safe. So many sensations pull at her, so much sensory input to attempt to process. She tries to focus on all of it, but the task is impossible. Feelings blur together in a beautiful mess that she can only label as bliss.

Sharp in her mind, however, is the sound of his heartbeat. She no longer must attempt to pick out the phantom sound from dark, secluded nights. Its rhythm is strong, unmistakable. Its pace is slightly quickened against her cheek, the only sign betraying his cool countenance towards their embrace. She closes her eyes and simply listens to its pounding, deep and steady, as it pumps blood through the body of the one that holds her, the one that is alive beside her and has promised to stay. His heartbeat is a soothing, tender lullaby, and she soon finds herself drifting.

Tomorrow, she will wake up. And they will be different.

Tomorrow, they will walk one path.

* * *

They stay next to each other now. Always.

Their feet fall together as they trudge through the forest on an endless, uncertain path. When they rest, he plops down beside her on the earth floor and they talk – him more than her usually, as he comments randomly on the wilderness around them or relates trivial stories about life before. He's smart, witty, and makes her smile, and she thinks that story time under a canopy of leaves may be her favorite part of the day.

They gather and hunt together. It consumes more time, but it troubles her to send him off alone, unarmed, to pick berries and roots. She offers him her gun, but he refuses with a sly grin and says, _"You might need it. Besides, I'd probably miss anyway."_

His hunting knife lies at the bottom of her pack, but she never mentions it, knowing that he wouldn't take it, if only because of its history. She's thought about throwing it away, tossing it out into the trees to never be seen again. But she always decides against it, and she comes to regard it as another scar, something that is a part of them, that they will look back on and remember that they survived.

So they scavenge with one another, and he watches her hunt. She teaches him different skills, like how to track an animal, how to set traps, the basics of using a bow. Just in case. If something would happen, she wants to leave him prepared.

At night, they share the same side of the fire, and he stretches and yawns, joking that if they had marshmallows, chocolate, and graham crackers they'd _really_ be in business. Then he turns to her, humor faded from his eyes, and takes her hands.

"We're going to be okay," he reminds her. "I swear, sweetheart, we're going to make it."

She nods once, squeezing his fingers.

And then they extinguish the flames and lie down beside each other in the darkness to sleep. And some _(most)_ mornings, she will wake to the rising of the early sun, and find his arm around her waist, their legs tangled, and her head on his chest, their bodies finding one another in slumber. She always moves and then they don't mention it, because they both know she's still not ready. She thinks he might be, because sometimes he will squeeze her closer to him for a fleeting moment before he loosens his grip and she rolls away.

So they continue on, side by side, waiting and hoping patiently for the day when she will be ready.


	5. Unknown, Known

"Your turn."

She turns her eyes up as they walk and looks around.

"Okay. I spy with my little eye something that is…brown."

He stops, lifting a container filled with water to his lips and taking a gulp. His Adam's apple bobs, and he grins.

"We've been playing this game for half an hour, and we haven't used any colors except green and brown. So is the life, I suppose, of two hapless apocalyptic survivors wandering through the woods with nothing to do but play I Spy."

She smiles.

"I see some berry bushes over there," she says, her keen eyes peering over his shoulder. "Want to go gather?"

"Sure."

She goes to follow him, but he stops.

"Why don't you go hunt?" he suggests. "I'll be fine on my own. And it will save time."

She shakes her head. "No. If someone were to come, you'd have no way –"

He cuts her off. "Sweetheart, you worry too much. We haven't seen a person in weeks. And if someone does show up, you won't be far away."

"But you're not as good a tracker as I am. If you don't pay attention, you could get lost."

"Here," he offers, pulling up layers of his clothing until he gets to what looks like the remnants of a red t-shirt. Holes, dirt, and burn marks litter the fabric.

"What _happened_?" she questions.

"A lot of shit," he answers, tearing a strip of fabric from the rag and tying it to a tree branch. "There. Now, even if I get lost, I have something to look for."

She bites her lip.

"You have to take my gun. I don't use it. It's too loud and it scares game away."

She gives it to him, and for the first time, he takes it without a fight. His fingers wrap around the grip.

"You know how to use it, right?"

He stares down at the weapon and whispers, "Yeah. Yeah, I can use a gun."

"Good. Don't forget to click the safety off. And aim with both eyes open."

"Got it."

"And stay in sight, okay?

"Okay."

"And if something happens, _call me_."

"I'm going to be fine," he assures her.

She looks down at her feet.

"I know," she agrees slowly, nodding her head. "I know."

"Sweetheart."

She glances up, and he offers her a small smile.

"Meet back up here in fifteen?"

"Yeah," she says.

He turns first, locking eyes with her, blue irises full of reassurance. She tries to remember them as she watches him take his first steps from her. It feels criminal, letting him walk away. (And was there a time, not so long ago, when she dreaded having him by her side?)

She sighs, and she's just turning when she hears something in the distance. It is faint, barely discernible. Peter won't hear it, but she does, for she has been shaped by the woods and can pick out sounds that don't belong.

The soft snap of a fallen tree branch cracking underfoot does not belong.

She grabs her bow and loads it immediately, spinning around, eyes scanning for signs of danger.

"Peter."

But she does not yell his name, and he does not turn to her. He continues to march forward, and if she caught his attention she knows the answer she would receive. He would say that he didn't hear a thing, that she's too tense, that she should look at the forest around her.

 _"You always tell me to watch the birds. If the birds are nervous, you should be too. Well, sweetheart, watch the birds."_

She does now. They are calm in their nests, sitting on branches with ruffled feathers, singing the only music left in the world to each other. She carefully listens for more sounds of human feet, and detects none.

 _It's a deer,_ she thinks. _It's probably a deer._

A deer that she should be looking for. Think of how much meat a deer would bring them!

She takes a deep breath to steady herself, and then turns again, keeping her bow raised and beginning the hunt.

She ponders independence as she stalks silently through the trees. Independence and how he has stolen it from her. It bothers her, in the very back of her mind, how important he has become, how hesitant she is to leave his side. How when she imagines life the way it was before him starting again – full of solitude, fear, and suspicion – her palms sweat and her knees wobble and she feels like crying.

She'd always been protective, even before The Purge. She'd tried so hard to watch over the people she cared about, to help them in their times of need. And if something happened, she felt responsible. She always believed there was some way she could have prevented it, that she could've changed something.

And then she lost them all. Every. Single. One.

She tried to keep in mind that it wasn't her fault, that there was nothing she could've done to rescue them. One woman could hardly ward off the end times.

But then in the beginning she'd looked around and saw others with their families and friends, and she wondered why they had been able to succeed in keeping their loved ones when she hadn't.

And when she managed to sleep they would haunt her dreams. Their skin would be too white, their eyes empty and dull, and they would question her in weak voices.

 _"Why didn't you save us?"_

So when she first went out in the woods to escape the impending collapse, she was relieved, frankly. It was a place where she wouldn't constantly encounter reminders of the fact that she'd failed and now she was all alone.

It was a place where she could attempt to stop holding herself accountable, and eventually the nightmares came less frequently and she promised herself she'd never care again. It was easier that way. Safer. It made her able to travel alone, to kill without guilt.

But then Peter forced his way into her life and he was intelligent, clever, beautiful, compassionate, and he made her _feel_ again.

He was all she had now. He made her better as a human, if not better as a survivor.

And what if she was to lose him? What if everything was taken away from her all over again? Could she handle it?

What would she become?

But she knew the answer to that already, she supposes. She would become a creature in the woods.

At the end of her best estimate of fifteen minutes, she finds no deer. She tells herself that this is alright, and she should not be alarmed, because plenty of animals roam beneath her detection.

A rabbit will suffice. She wraps her kill completely in cloth, then tucks it away in her pack. But she keeps her bow loaded and in hand, still on edge from the noise.

She gets up and stretches her back after being crouched near the ground so the brush served as camouflage. The vertebrae in her spine snap back in place with a series of soft pops.

She takes a moment again to listen to the woods, and she is amazed at how peaceful she finds it. The wildlife shows no signs of a foreign intruder; nothing warns of an unfeeling predator surreptitiously stalking. She thinks too much, lets her mind imagine that small things are more foreboding than they truly are. Peter would laugh.

Peter.

Her eyes search for him immediately.

Peter.

Her heart sinks to her feet. She doesn't see him.

"Peter!"

She closes her mouth instantly, silently cursing. Stupid, what a stupid thing to do. Now she's made it known that he's not alone, and if they get scared of being outnumbered…

If there's only one of them.

 _Stop,_ she tells herself. _Stop now._

She told him to stay in sight. Damn it, she _told_ him to stay in sight.

She probably wandered off while she was hunting. Her thought distracted her, and she's the one who strayed off course. He's probably waiting for her back at the tree.

She begins to track herself back to where they started immediately, bow raised and eyes peeled. She has trouble ignoring the fact that the forest has seemed to suddenly fall silent.

 _They sense me,_ she thinks. _They feel that I'm nervous and that's why they're scared. It's my fault._

He's fine, he's fine, he's fine. He's waiting for her back at the tree and he's going to laugh at her. He's going to take her hand and he's going to laugh, laugh, laugh.

Except that she has to be close now and she still can't find him.

Maybe she's tracking wrong. Maybe she made a mistake and she was supposed to turn left twenty yards ago.

Except that she's been tracking since her first day here and she doesn't make mistakes anymore.

Nevertheless, she's just about to turn around and double back when she sees it, the red strip of t-shirt tied to the tree branch. She runs to it, holding it between her fingers to make sure it's real.

He's not here. She's touching the cloth and he's not here.

 _Why didn't you save us?_

"Peter," she murmurs. Her voice trembles.

And that's when she hears it, the loud bang of a gunshot ringing through the air.

The blood drains from her face.

"PETER!" she screams, unable to help herself, immediately running off in the direction in which she saw him leave. She doesn't track consciously, but her senses are piqued, and instinct, an invisible pull to him, somehow leads her on the right path. She moves rapidly and quietly, bow and arrow at the ready, a determined, lethal hunter stalking her prey.

She sees him suddenly, his brown hair sticking out against the forest background, the back of his head turned towards her. She does not call his name, but sprints to him. The scene in front of her eyes terrifies her: The gun hangs limp in his hand, arms raised in a gesture of surrender. A bald man stands five yards from him, pistol in hand, finger on the trigger and ready to shoot.

The stranger has the faster weapon, and she wonders if they fired at the same time, who would win. If her accuracy would edge out his speed.

She does not wait to find out.

Her actions are based purely on predisposition now, the innate animal desire to keep what is yours.

She'd always been protective.

She comes up behind Peter, sticking her leg out to tangle with his so he tumbles to the ground.

The man barely has time to move his eyes from Peter's dropping body. She does not pause to allow him to gain his bearings before she sends an arrow straight between his eyes.

He falls slowly, his lifeless body crashing to the ground with a thud, a trail of blood beginning to drip down his nose.

She keeps her bow poised still, remaining on high alert, ready to shoot another dart if the man should rise.

She registers her surroundings.

 _Watch the birds._

They are noisy, restless, but it can be blamed on their ruckus, she guesses. The rest of the forest seems normal.

The sound of both their labored breathing fills the air, and she keeps her weapon pointed on the stranger, even though she knows there's no need. Even though she knows if he came back now, he'd be one of the living dead.

She feels one of Peter's hands wrap around her ankle, but she does not look down.

"He's dead," he whispers finally, moving the hand up to stroke her calf gently. Somehow, he knows the words she needs to hear. "Sweetheart, he's dead."

She reluctantly lowers her bow, scanning the forest one more time and finding nothing amiss. She glances down at him where he lay on his back on the ground, between her legs.

She can't believe it, but he has that damn smirk on his face. It's times like these when she really wishes she could hit him.

"I thought you weren't going to watch my back," he tells her.

She throws her bow down too forcefully, for it is only homemade and fragile. He moves to get up, but she stops him, pushing him back down and sitting on his torso.

"Sweetheart."

"I told you to stay in sight!" she yells at him, and she can see tears already begin to cloud her vision. "I told you to stay in sight!"

His eyes widen slightly. He wasn't expecting this kind of reaction.

"Sweetheart – "

"And you told me you could use a gun!"

"I _can._ "

"Doesn't look that way! You didn't even have it pointed in his direction!" she exclaims.

"I shot at him once, but I missed. I told you I'd miss."

"Then you should've stayed with me!"

"But I slow you down. I'm louder than you, I scare away game, I make everything ten times more difficult than it should be."

"So?"

"So you do better without me!" he tells.

She pauses, and cocks her head as she takes in his words.

"What are you saying?"

He mumbles, "You'd be safer without me."

She barely keeps her mouth from gaping open.

"So, what? You want to leave?"

"That's not what I said."

She rolls her eyes. "No, you just go on about how I would be better off without you and then go wander around by yourself."

"You shouldn't have to worry over me."

"Do you think that would stop," she asks, exasperated, "if you went off by yourself into the woods with a gun with a few bullets and no supplies?"

"I don't know. Maybe. You'd forget about me eventually."

She narrows her eyes, and her next words are accusatory.

"So is that what I have to be nervous about now? The fact that you might run off? After everything. After you begged to stay with me, when I didn't want you. After I told you what it felt like when you weren't talking to me. Now you would try to leave?"

"If it would help…I don't know. Maybe. I don't know."

She wants to hit him again.

This time, she does. She brings her fists down onto his chest forcefully.

"Ow!" he exclaims, his eyes hardening. "What the _fuck_?"

"You bastard!" she shouts at him. "How could you even consider that?"

"I never said I was leaving!"

"You never said you _weren't_! After you made me keep you, after you made me care about you, now you're going to run away in some sort of self-righteous sacrifice?"

His face softens. "You care about me?"

"Of course I do! You know that."

"Yeah," he says. "Yeah, I guess. You've just never said it before."

"Neither have you," she counters.

"I care about you," he tells her vehemently, bringing his hand up to rest on her thigh. "I care about you so much."

"I don't believe you," she whispers.

His eyebrows pull together, and he moves his hand from her leg. She feels his body stiffen under her.

"Excuse me?"

"It doesn't fucking feel like it! You promised. You said that you'd always be here."

"Well, sorry," he says, his words sharp and bitter. "My perspective might've changed a little bit when you almost _died_."

" _I_ almost died? _You_ almost died! He was about to shoot you!"

She brings her hands down again, but this time she grabs onto his jacket. She feels her eyes tighten, and she tries so desperately to hold her tears back. Wishing she could somehow be autonomous again and have this burden of feeling lifted from her, without the sting that separation would now bring

But that's not possible anymore.

"You could've _died_ , Peter."

She closes her eyes when she feels tears on her cheeks. The tension leaves his body immediately.

"Oh, sweetheart," he coos.

He covers one of her hands with his own, as she tightens her grip on his clothes.

"I can't lose you, too. And you almost died. I don't know what I would've done, if that man had…" she trails off, unable to continue. She wishes it were unthinkable, but it's not. She can imagine it clearly – how it would feel if he were gone. And she doesn't know how she could bear it.

"I didn't," he murmurs, after a period of silence.

She opens her eyes, and looks at him. His expression is so gentle, his eyes so _full_. Of what, she does not allow herself to focus on. Because of what it would imply, what it would mean.

Because somewhere in the back of her mind, she remembers that this was never, ever supposed to happen. That this could end so badly.

"What?" she questions.

"I could've died. But I didn't."

He sits up slowly, but she does not move. She doesn't have the energy, or the will. She ends up in his lap, and he brings his hand to her face. The pads of his fingers sweep against her skin, wiping away the moisture left by her tears.

"You saved me," he continues. "Again. And I didn't die. I'm still here. I'm still alive."

She places her palm firmly on his chest, over his heart. She feels it pump, its beat firm and steady.

"You're still alive," she says quietly, nodding to herself. "You're still alive."

He apologizes. "I'm sorry. Next time I'll stay with you."

"You're still alive," she repeats again, over and over like a chant. Like the more she says it, the longer it will continue to be true.

"I'm still alive," he agrees, pulling her towards him now, enveloping her body in her arms. Her ear lies next to her hand, and she can hear it now too, the drum of his heart. Her tears return, but he holds her, rocking them slightly and placing butterfly kisses on top of her head.

It's just like that first night, she thinks, that first time they were close like this. Except now it is different again. Now they are one and now it is more. It will always be more.

He cradles her and soothes her in the middle of the forest, and his arms make her feel so safe and so warm and so much _more_ than before. His lips in her hair, his fingers across her back, she experiences it all multiplied exponentially.

And she _senses_ it there, what she saw in his eyes, all around them. It smothers them, and she is helpless to resist it. It creeps in, slowly, flowing in through her toes and fingertips and dancing up her limbs, singing in her blood.

A shiver runs down her spine, and he hugs her closer.

She could almost die here, in his embrace. If everyone's fate is, ultimately, to die, to become victims of The Purge, she hopes it comes in a place this peaceful.

A word bubbles in her mouth, pushes against her lips.

Her name.

She wants to tell him her name.

She hesitates only because of a quiet voice in the back of her mind keeps telling her that it is dangerous, that this can't happen. That she vowed to not let this happen. That the end of their story could be so tragic.

But she's decided. She wants to tell him her name. She wants to know how his voice will sound when he says it, how his mouth would look as his lips formed the letters. How it would feel whispered against her skin, how it would sound harmonized with his laugh or around their campfires at night.

She wants to tell him. She wants to hear him say it.

"Olivia," she whispers into his chest.

His mouth pauses against her scalp.

"Olivia," she says again, pulling away from him and sitting up so she can see him. His eyes are wide, and gaze at her hopefully.

"What?"

She half-smiles, and touches his jaw.

"My name is Olivia."

He stares at her incredulously for a moment, before his face suddenly brightens. He squeezes her to him again and then pulls her back, tucking some strands of hair behind her ear and taking her hand.

He grins widely. And then, he says it, so devoutly and awestruck. Like she is the only thing in the world that matters.

"Olivia."


	6. Less, More

They constantly evolve. Their dynamic always changes, as they become closer and feelings morph, continuously growing together. No day is the same as the previous one. They are never routine.

This night is not the same as the last.

He does not sit next to her around their fire for the first time in weeks (months). But she does not feel far from him. In fact, she feels closer to him than she has ever felt. She cannot bear to look at him, but she senses him all around her. Her skin prickles, and she knows he's staring at her. She knows. She would stare too, if she had the courage. If she could finally expel that last shard of inhibition within herself that tells her it isn't safe, isn't smart, isn't right.

The air between them is thick, charged, a circuit of electricity flowing from her to him and back again. It reminds her of Tesla coils, and she remembers going to the science center as a little girl, her hand in her mother's, and how she would stare at the giant machine, as the power shooting through it would snap and pop, creating glowing blue currents. She would hide behind Mommy's legs and only peek. Mommy always looked down at her, a bemused smile on her face.

 _"We can leave, honey, if you're afraid."_

But she would always shake her head no, because as much as the loud noises made her jump, the alluring shimmer of electricity fascinated her. It made her want to stay.

So they would stand there, watching until five minutes turned into ten minutes, turned into fifteen, and she would watch, fear and awe mixing within her belly and creating the delicious feeling of excitement in the blood flowing through her veins.

It's how she feels now. He still scares some of her. But he demands the attention of an even larger part that gains in size every day, drawing her to him like a magnet or a satellite, and she can't look away as he hums and cracks.

They don't speak. His gaze is on her still. The hair on her arms stands up at attention and goosebumps rise on her skin.

She feels dizzy, unbalanced. Like she is standing on the precipice of a great cliff, teetering on the edge, and she knows she should try and steady herself. But he is at the bottom, beckoning her. Pulling on her. And she's not sure she doesn't want to fall.

She glances up briefly, and a small movement catches the corner of her eye. She focuses on it, and pauses, turning her head to the side.

His fingers are playing with the damn string.

She wants to stop him. The muscles in the bottom of her stomach tighten.

My _God_ , how she wants to stop him.

It decides her.

She swallows deeply, and takes a long breath before moving her gaze up slowly, raking her eyes over his body, up up up until she gets to his strong jawline, covered with long stubble. He'll shave soon. He does so sparingly, but still he does - sometimes, early in the morning, as she cleans and packs up their camp. He does it away from her usually, behind a tree, using only water. She spies on him though, surreptitiously watching him as he pulls a small blade from his pack and runs it carefully over his face. His long fingers splayed across his skin, guiding the makeshift razor, and she would let her mind wonder, for a second, what they would feel like. Not holding her hand or gently leading her. Rather, drifting lower than the small of her back. Drumming across her stomach, wrapped around her hips. Skimming across her neck and continuing down, down, down…

Those long fingers, that toy with the thread. The fingers she will still.

Her eyes move up to his lips. They seem amber in the flickering firelight.

She licks hers.

Her eyes make their final ascent, past his nose, falling right into his line of sight. Blue irises that stare at her, that hypnotize her, that pull her in like a rip tide, and she can't _(doesn't want to)_ look away.

His eyes are hungry. So deliciously hungry. For what, she knows. She knows. Her heart hammers in her chest.

Their visions lock and they crackle and pop.

The corner of his mouth twitches, before her calls her, his voice deep, low, seductive.

"Sweetheart."

She shivers, but gets up automatically, closing the distance between them with every slow, deliberate step. She never breaks eye contact with him, as she arrives. She sits down, plops into his lap, straddling him. No hesitation stops her now. Its sound is long forgotten, drowned out under the sound of the siren call he sends to her.

She reaches down, takes his hand from his sleeve, lacing her fingers with his own. _Finally_ , she thinks. But she finds no relief. The energy between them is palpable, on fire. Burning with a blue flame born from his eyes.

 _(The world is on fire, no one can save me but you.)_

Eyes that stare up at her still. They do not break their trance even to blink.

He squeezes her hand, and swallows deeply. The muscles in his neck ripple, and her stomach flips, butterflies swarming and flitting inside.

There is a long moment when they do nothing but look. Feel. Wait. Anticipate.

 _Anticipate_.

He breaks it with one word. A whisper into the night. A murmur of surrender.

"Olivia."

The only person in the world who knows her name.

They do not delay any longer.

They kiss. They kiss like they have waited forever. They kiss like they never will again. They kiss as if they were drowning, dying, as if there will never be a tomorrow. Like they will not have another time. Like they will never touch again.

They have insecurities, no inhibitions. Hers fade away with each pull of her hair, each tug on her lips. With the way he holds her flush against him and does not let go, with each graze of his fingertips over her skin, as his hands roam and play with the hem of her shirt.

They break apart only when they must, when they have to breathe. She keeps her face close to his though, their noses touching, chests heaving like they'd just run for miles. He kisses her cheek, so tenderly. She smiles, and then pushes on his shoulders. He falls, and his back hits the ground with a soft thump. He stares up at her, his eyes wide and bright. A small grin graces his lips.

She begins to move her hips against his. He closes his eyes. A sound comes out of his throat, a low moan. It sends chills down her spine.

She bends down and starts to kiss him again, their lips and tongues meeting and mingling. He pulls on her jacket, yanking it over her frame so she is left only in her thin shirt. He tugs at it incessantly, but his hands do not venture past it. She doesn't know why. It's like he's waiting for something. For her permission.

He moves his fingers to run up and down her legs, teasing and caressing. Then they move to her hair, pushing her even closer, until they move to her shirt to her legs to her face and back again on a tantalizing loop.

Her hands, however, drift under his shirt, and wander over his torso, warm and strong, muscles rippling and contracting with his every breath and movement.

Her fingers inch down, down, down, until they reach the cool metal of the button on his pants. She begins to fiddle with it when he speaks.

"Wait, sweetheart."

"Why?"

"I just –. " He cuts off abruptly when she moves against him suddenly, moaning again, muttering " _Fuck_ , Olivia," under his breath.

She smirks, and goes back to work on his pants, moving to the zipper. But he stops her again, grabbing her hands and stilling them.

" _Wait_ , Olivia."

She pulls back slightly, gazing at him, her stomach dropping and a hot blush beginning to flush her skin. The embarrassment of rejection consumes her. She averts her eyes.

She could laugh at herself. Look at her, the one who was so distant, so resistant to him. Now she wants more, and she's being humiliated.

It appears she's misread him.

"I'm sorry," she whispers. "I thought you…I thought you wanted to. I'm sorry.""

She moves to get up, but his hands drop hers and wrap around her hips. She can't get up.

She peers back at him. His eyebrows are pulled together in confusion.

"What are you doing?"

She closes her eyes. She could _cry_.

"I thought…I thought you…wanted this. _Me_."

His hands tighten their grip for a moment.

"Wait. No, Olivia. That's not what I meant."

"I was so stupid, Peter."

"Sweetheart, look at me…Olivia."

She raises her chin hesitantly. The expression that greets her in tender, serious. He brings his hand up to cup her cheek.

"You misunderstood me," he tells her gently. "I've wanted you for such – _such_ – a long time. And I want this more than anything."

"But…" she prompts.

"I just need you to know," he says. "Before it happens. That it just can't be this. That we can't fuck and then pretend that we don't and go back to the way we were. I can't do that. I don't want to if it's going to be like that."

And it's there again, that glint in his eyes.

"It's not just sex. This _can't_ be just sex."

She smiles slightly, and then takes his hand on her cheek in hers.

"I know," she tells him. "I know."

With them, it will always be more.

He swallows and blinks, and then stares up at her. For a moment, she thinks he'll cry, as his eyes shine. He moves his fingers to rest on her lips.

"It's just, I l-." He stops, sighing, and her heart flutters, the feeling all around them, smothering her.

But he understands that she's not quite ready yet, and he searches for words she will accept.

He finally finishes, "I care about you so much."

"I know," she murmurs again, and she kisses his fingertips, before taking his hand and moving it down slowly, slipping his under her shirt and resting it on her stomach, over her belly button. He inhales sharply.

"Don't be afraid," she tells him. "I want you to."

His fingertips graze over her skin, up and down, each time exploring more and more, pushing further.

Those long fingers.

She bends down, laying against him and resting her cheek on his.

"I want you to touch me," she whispers in his ear.

His fingers move up, and this time do not go back down, until he reaches her bra. They pause there, and move around to her back, coming to rest on the clasp.

" _Touch me_ ," she beckons, pleads.

He does.

He undoes the clasp and pushes the undergarment away, and he _touches_ her as he turns his head, his mouth finding her earlobe and sucking gently before bringing her face to his, kissing her with eager lips and an open mouth.

He touches her, and he does not stop touching her. They snap and pop, their nerves and atoms dancing into the quiet night.


	7. Tell, Listen

"Tell me a story."

He requests this just as the sun begins to dawn on another day. They lie on the ground, her head resting on his chest. His fingers lazily trace her spine again and again.

"About what?" she asks.

"Anything. _You._ I want to know you."

"You already know me better than anyone else."

She moves her head to look at him, and he smiles down at her.

"Yeah, but…I want to know who you were."

She hesitates, settling back onto his chest. The beat of his heart rings in her ear.

 _Ba-bum. Ba-bum._

She hears him sigh after a minute of silence, resigning himself to her resistance.

"I had a niece," she begins.

The only sign of his surprise is the pause his fingers make in their circuit. They resume after a beat.

"Her name was Ella," she continues in quiet voice. "She had long, brown hair and chocolate eyes. The cutest laugh you'd ever hear. Her birthday was on March 18th. And I remember going to the hospital when she was born, holding her for the first time, and thinking how _pretty_ she was. And wondering how I could love someone so much. Someone I'd just met. Someone who wasn't even mine.

"She was my sister's kid. And when they'd come to visit me, she and I would read a story together every night before she went to bed. Her favorite was _The Burlap Bear_. And if she woke up really early, she would come into my room, because her mother _hated_ the mornings. She'd crawl into bed and say 'Aunt Liv, it's time to get up!' She used to call me Aunt Liv.

"I took her to the children's museum once. And they had this electronic train display. It was so huge and intricate. The train would go through this little town and a forest and an amusement park. In one section it was snowing, and in another it was summer. And she loved it so much. We must've spent an hour there, watching it, her taking my hand and dragging me around the display to follow the train."

She pauses, and takes a deep breath, feeling the tears running down her cheeks. It's the first time she's let herself willingly remember anyone from before since she'd lost them.

It hurts as much as she thought it would.

But she continues. For him. Because he's already given her so much. Because it's the one thing he asks of her.

"Ella was five when The Purge happened. I was in Boston, and they lived in Chicago. And I wanted to get to them, I _tried_ , but I just…I couldn't…And I didn't save them. They're gone."

"Olivia," he whispers.

She turns further into his chest. He sits up, gathering her in his arms.

"Peter, they're _dead_."

He shushes her gently, and rocks them, trying to soothe her. She feels his lips press against the top of her head.

"I couldn't save them."

A long, silent moment hangs between them, where she closes her eyes, tries to steady her breathing, focusing solely on the kisses he places in her hair.

"You don't know that," he says finally.

Her eyes snap open.

"You don't know that. They could still be alive. They could be fine."

"Peter."

"Sweetheart, we could go there. We could find them. They may be waiting for you there, and we have to do is go and – "

"Peter," she says again, more forcefully. He stops, as she sits up, looking into his eyes.

"Peter, I met a woman from Chicago a week after it happened. She'd gotten out just as it started. I asked her, and she said that Chicago was gone. No city, no suburbs. They were decimated. There was nothing and no one left. And when she said that, I knew they were gone."

"But Olivia, she could've been wrong. People have survived under terrible, unbelievable circumstances before. Look at _us_ , for God's sake. They could've made it."

She shakes her head.

"No. I know that they're gone. I knew even before that woman said anything to me. As soon as it happened, as he first reports started coming in, I just had this _feeling_. And I knew they were dead."

He doesn't answer her.

"And then," she tells him, "I was all alone. I had nobody. And I was ashamed. That I couldn't be there for them, that I had failed them. That it was my fault they were dead."

"That's _not_ true," he interrupts her, his words adamant.

"I know that," she promises him. "But that didn't stop me from thinking it. No matter how many times I rationalized it, I still felt guilty. All my friends and family were dead. I was the only one left. How was that possible? Or fair? Or right? And it hurt so much, that I couldn't stand it. So I didn't. I closed myself off, stopped feeling. I came out here, because I didn't want to risk it – having that accountability again. Experiencing that overwhelming remorse. And I became a monster."

"Olivia."

"I _did_ , Peter," she insists. "I know you may not want to believe it, but I hurt so many people without a second thought. So many innocent people. Because I wanted to live, sure. So did they, though. And I never stopped to think about them. I was selfish. And coldhearted. And deadly."

He lays his cheek on top of her head, inhaling slowly.

"You were just trying to survive," he whispers.

"I was doing it the wrong way."

She pauses, and brings her hands up. Her fingers graze over his chest.

She says, "But then something funny happened."

"What's that?"

She takes his hand.

"You found me."

He pulls back, and stares at her intently. Her free hand cups his jaw, thumb moving from his mouth to his chin.

She smiles, almost happily.

"Now I'm not alone anymore."

He leans down, kissing her lips and then her cheek. He keeps his face there, murmuring against her skin.

"And you'll never be alone again."


	8. North, South

They know they're nearing the South when the heat breaks, when beads of sweat gather on their foreheads and they slowly shed layers of clothing, until they are left in their shirts. She pulls her hair up, and he shaves often.

Their pace is slower than it used to be. They stroll through the forest at an almost leisurely speed, hand in hand. They rest when they want to, hunt when it pleases them. Sometimes they set up camp early in the afternoon, and stay there the rest of the day. There is no hurry; they walk with no particular destination in mind, move because staying put seems dangerous still. There is nowhere else they need to be. Everything that is theirs they have with them: their weapons, the clothes on their back, the items in their packs, and each other.

It's the happiest she's been in a long time. Certainly since The Purge. He makes her feel lighter. More normal. When he slips his shirt over her shoulders when they've finished at night, kisses her on the nose and then pulls her down and spoons behind her, slipping his arm around her waist and under the fabric, drumming his fingers across her stomach, she has the slightest hope that someday, by some act of God, things might be how they were.

When she closes her eyes, remembers Ella and her sister, The Purge and all the peril that surrounds them, she has a thought. A thought she never believed she'd think again.

 _I don't want to die._

* * *

The trees being to thin.

One day, as they walk, he pauses, turns his head up toward the sky, and sniffs.

"I smell salt."

She inhales deeply, and detects the scent. That used to mean sunny, summer days, sandcastles, laughter, relaxation, and joy.

"We must be getting close to the coast," she says.

He looks at her, his eyes lit up, and smiles. Suddenly, he drops down on one knee in front of her.

Her heart leaps as he clears his throat.

"Olivia. Sweetheart."

He gazes up at her from under his eyelashes, and she eyes him warily. He smirks. Because he knows exactly what he's doing to her.

"Don't look at me like that. It just occurs to me that I have never formally asked you out."

She snorts.

"Hey, hey," he cautions her. "Be nice. This is an important step in every relationship. So, Olivia, would you like to go on a date with me? I was thinking we could spend the day at the beach. I can't promise dinner, or even that we won't be killed while we're swimming, but we can hope."

She means to roll her eyes at him.

Instead, the corners of her mouth turn up. She blinks, and she could hit herself for the moisture she feels building up in her eyes. She never used to be such a _sap_.

"Okay," she whispers.

He beams, taking her hand and kissing it. He rises.

"So, which way?"

She closes her eyes, relaxing her shoulders.

"Listen with me."

He follows her request. After a minute, he speaks.

"I hear it."

She takes a deep breath, and strains. Finally, she detects the almost-mute roar of the sea.

"Which way?" she asks, opening her lids.

He points to his right.

"Good. Me too."

He takes her hand.

"Well, what are we waiting for?"

She stares at his thumb as it rubs ovals on the skin near the side of her thumb.

"Nothing," she answers.

"Let's _go_ then," he pleads, and tugs her along as he begins jogging in the direction of the noise.

The ocean is farther away than they estimate. They make camp that evening before they arrive at their destination. He curls up behind her, murmuring something about sandcastles against her shoulder before falling asleep quickly. They'd kept up a quickened pace throughout the day, trying to reach the coast. She feels her body begging her for slumber. She fights her eyelids, though, for the moment. She thinks about him. Nothing particular or significant. Just him. His face. His voice. His hair when he first stirs in the morning, sticking up in every direction. His arms, when they wrap around her waist as they're walking and pull her towards him. He hugs her, tucking her head under his chin and smoothing her hair. She asks him what it's for.

 _"I don't know. I just felt like holding you."_

She turns her head where she lies next to him, cranes her neck and studies his face in the darkness. His cheek is still pressed against her back, his mouth open slightly as he dreams. She smiles timidly, and presses her lips to his temple for a fleeting kiss. She sighs, settling into him. She finally closes her eyes, whispering his name once into the night.

"Peter."


End file.
